How a letter from my past ensured a successful 2020
“Confidently, in the direction of your dreams, live the life you’ve imagined.” (Henry DavidThoreau)
As part of a New Year’s goal setting exercise, I wrote the following letter to myself one year ago today. It was meant to be squirrelled away, not to be looked at until 364 days later. Its intention in its making was to set meaningful goals for 2020. It’s intention in reading it a year later was to be celebratory, pointing to successes in various areas of my life eliminating my tendency to think the year was wasted. It’s easy to focus on all that went wrong, on all my mistakes. After reading this again, I am shocked at how every word rang true. While last January, I couldn’t have guessed a pandemic and its effects upon my life, nor the death of my father-in-law, along with many of the parents of my friends, I did anticipate that cancer would take my Mom. I outlined the outcomes resulting from health goals and mental battles won.
Despite the unexpected, I expected to win. And win I did. That’s resilience. That’s “Plan B is Better.”
I decided to publish this word for word. I did not change a thing. Hopefully it will prompt you to see your own resilience story of 2020.
Dear Kelly,
This is a difficult letter to write you. There are some difficult moments ahead for you that are guaranteed. I hope that as you read this now, you will have experienced the peace that passes understanding you have been praying for.
I hope you will have pushed through your grief to the point where you see the life worth remembering, worth celebrating and worth scaffolding from. You have experienced many types of loss and have emerged from it. This year’s should be no different with your track record.
Beyond the memories, I hope you have used this loss as a catalyst to living well; living well means taking nutrition and exercise so seriously that it is almost like a full time job. Equally serious should be your work to “be in each moment”.
I hope you have pushed past and conquered your fears. I hope you now know that you are in a sunshine part of your life and that you DO have much to look forward to. I hope your experiences have served to illuminate where the joy is in your life… your perfect husband, the warmth of your friendship with Taylor, the pride of Spencer, your extended family and social life.
I hope you will experience the autonomy you hoped for when retiring and that you are thriving in creativity and as the CEO of the household. I hope you enjoyed completing your nutrition course and followed through with your book and blog aspirations.
I hope peri-menopause has brought wisdom and courage. It would be really nice if the sense of claustrophobia around travelling will have dissipated. If it has not, I hope it will be a future focus for 2021. I believe that your panic attacks will be a thing of the past.
It must feel good to have achieved your physique goals, enjoy more energy and to look so good in your clothes again. It’s nice to know you turn heads again.
It must feel good to feel even closer to Randy without fear that loving him hard will only cause future pain.
It must feel good to know that the time you spent getting to know midlife-Kelly resulted in wonderful residual in all areas of your life and served to intensify what already brings you joy.
Love,
Kelly 2019
51 years young
My husband, an entrepreneur, encouraged me to write this letter to myself as part of a series of exercises in goal setting. This one was written to outline one-year goals. I really did become a certified Nutrition Coach, I really did make real, sustained habit changes in my own health as a reaction to my Mom’s cancer diagnosis, I really did improve my fear-factor and learned a heck of a lot about the transition to menopause. And I really did start a website, with the help & guidance of my daughter, as a resilience blogger of “Plan B is Better”.
Randy also encouraged me to write “A day in the life of Kelly”. I was to imagine a typical day 10 years from now. I would wake up, where? I would see, what? I would be with who? I would be doing what? I would feel like…? The next step was to develop a plan to get me to that wonderful day. Significant action that could be started today to move me in the direction I envisioned for myself. It could be as simple as ordering (and reading!) a book on gardening to taking a bigger step like I did when I retired 5 years early from teaching. Dreaming is only step one. Action finds the path. And resilience course-corrects when life presents its obstacles to teach us things our limited perspective prohibits.
It’s hard work worth doin’. Allowing myself the luxury of dreaming some dreams has been rewarding. It was a challenge for me to treat myself to some pretty lofty dreams. It was even more difficult to research what needed to be done to realize the dreams. The cost of some of 2020’s outcomes reduced me to tears at times. And yet, looking back, I will admit I feel pretty darn proud of myself.
“Confidently, in the direction of your dreams, live the life you’ve imagined.”
ADDENDUM CHALLENGE
Do it. Write the letter. Today.
As you pack up your Christmas decorations, put the letter in with them.
